Car Breakers

There's a graveyard in our street,

But it's not for putting people in;

The bodies they bury here

Are made of steel and paint and tin.

                            The people come and leave their wrecks

                             For crunching in the giant jaws

                            Of a great hungry car-machine,

                             That lives on bonnets, wheels and doors

When I pass by the yard at night,

I sometimes think I here a sound

Of ghostly  horns that moan and whine ,

Upon that metal- graveyard mound.

                                          -Unknown-

Excavation

                                             If I should meet with the boy that I was,

                                                        How should we look?

                                                        What could we say?

                                            So have I changed in the years that I think

                                                         Both would be dumb.

                                            Yet there is nothing that came from without 

                                                         Nothing of new

           

                                                          Built on the old.

                                            What I am now was asleep in me then,

                                                          Waiting its hour.

                                             Slowly, as men who unbury a vast                                                                

                                                           City that lay 

                                                           Sunken in sand,           

                                             Thought and the powerful spades of the world 

                                                           Dig out the self.

               

- by Clifford Bax -

Dream Poem

                                            In a corner of my bedroom

                                                      grew a tree

                                                      a happy tree

                                                      my own tree

                                           its leaves were soft

                                                       like flesh

                                           and its birds sang poems for me then

                                                      without warning

                                            two men

                                                       with understanding smiles

                                            and axes

                                                        made out forged excuses came 

                                             and chopped it down

                                                         either yesterday

                                               or the day before

                                                          i think it was the day before.

                                                                                                 - Roger McGough -

Don't Quit

Try and try again and you will succeed

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high.

 And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with it's twists and turns,

As every on of us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about

When he might have won had be stuck it out;

Don't give up though the pace seem slow

You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out

The silver tint of the cloud of doubt,

And you can never tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far; 

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

                                                                                 -Unknown-

Folklore

One very important source of knowledge is folklore. Lore means learning. Folklore is the learning or knowledge that has not been written down. It has been passed down orally from generation to generation.

What is interesting about folklore? While the main body of knowledge is passed down, the details may change from area to area. They are bound up with the customs and traditions of the society. It includes tales, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes and popular beliefs.

Every country has it's own body of folklore. Agricultural societies were full of folklore.In Europe folklore became a serious study in the 19th century with the rise of nationalism Sociologists study folklore. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected the stories and legends known in Germany and complied them as one book. The English translation is known as Children's and Household Tales. This was published in 1812. Now we can read lots of tales from all other lands.

When we read stories about these lands we can learn about the nature of the land, the climate, the animals and the living conditions of the time. There are many stories about fire in many lands. Aladin struck a match. That was magic. Amal Biso went to house to borrow some fire / light. The story of the Little Match Girl tells us how she sold matches in the cold wintry evenings.

These stories influence our lives too. The popularity of the teddy bears comes from the love of these stories. The bears in these tales are like human beings, kind and gentle. This attitude to bears is totally absent in other cultures. Some times a similar story may be told in two different lands. There is a story in Ummagga Jataka very similar to the story told by Bertolt Brecht in A Caucasian Chalk Circle.

Some habits customs and taboos, that is thing you must not do, also are parts of folk lore. The use of lime and turmeric for cleansing is one such example.

In ancient time when a person died and the dead body was taken out, the place was sprinkled with turmeric water. People returning from a funeral would rub them selves with lime. It is known that lime and turmeric have disinfecting properties. In ancient times in Sri Lanka people going in to forests, or crossing on to Aiiyanayaka a local god of the aria. However the custom had a very significant use or morning. The sprigs dying on these trees would indicate the path to the traveler. So, the belief that 'if you did not observe the rites of god Aiiyanayaka you would be lost, has a real meaning. Perhaps the fear of god would have made people not to forget to take this very essential precaution.

Search Engines

The internet is a source of knowledge. It is of very recent origin. However the influence it has on society is immeasurable. The scope is very wide. It is easily accessible to everyone.

  Knowledge has got a new dimension with the introduction of the internet. An internet user has access a lot of knowledge and information. A book for example is read serially one sentence after the other. Words are written horizontally or vertically. If we went to read a book, and listen to music at the same time, we have to use two separate sources for that. But the internet has brought thetwo together for us. You must haveseen people working at the computer listening to music.

When producing a book, the weight and size play an important role. That is why dictionaries and encyclopaedia come in volumes. We will not be able to lift one if they are produced as a single work. The internet has no "weight" unlike a book which is heavy. And so with the network, there is no 'bulk'. We can get ehat we want at a 'click'

The language that is most used on the internet is English. The internet was first started as a research project of the Department of Defense of the USA.

The internet provides an immense source of knowledge, through such as Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia etc.

However there are certain disadvantages in the internet. No one is responsible for the information or the quality of information. There is no source for this information. There is no authority, or authorship responsible.

The Encyclopiedia

What does an encyclopedia contains ?

  An encyclopaedia on the other hand gives a full account on the subject. It gives the most relevant knowledge gathered on that subject. It often includes maps, illustrations, charts, as well as statistics to show relationships.

What is the meaning of the word encyclopaedia? When was the word first used?

  The word "Encyclopaedia", comes from the classical Greek word meaning, " a general education". The idea of producing an encyclopaedia is very old. The term first used in 1541.

List the limitations of a dictionary. What does it not do?

The encyclopaedia  has developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. A dictionary is mainly on words and their definitions. It provides limited information, for the word defined. Some times the definition given in the dictionary may not give enough understanding of the world to the reader. He may not understand the broad meaning.

What does an encyclopaedia do, that a dictionary doesn't?

An encyclopaedia is a complete summary of information. This information can be on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge.